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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26749858">Taught by Thirst</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/quamquam20/pseuds/quamquam20'>quamquam20</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars Sequel Trilogy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood Drinking, Blood and Gore, Bloody Kisses, Body Horror, Cutting for Blood, Dry Humping, F/M, Food, Human/Vampire Relationship, Not Canon Compliant - Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Vampires, small spaces</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 12:01:24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,080</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26749858</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/quamquam20/pseuds/quamquam20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Since being turned, Rey hadn't tasted anything very remarkable. Until him.</p><p>Reyloween Day 1- Vampire</p><hr/><p>
  <i>She'd had so many far-flung flavors. And nothing compared to his, even with the bolt of adrenaline and the flecks of injury. He was savable. Savorable.</i>
</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>34</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>116</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Reyloween 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Taught by Thirst</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>From @faunary's <a href="https://twitter.com/faunary/status/1301256014566580224">prompt list!</a><br/></p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The old woman in Niima Outpost told Rey that she would never need to eat again.</p><p>Technically- <em>obliquely</em>- it was true. Rey didn't have to trade her hard work for partial portions and she didn't have to cook. Chewing was a distant memory, a performance when she needed it. Instead, she gnawed and tore and drained and gulped, just as ravenous and unpicky as ever.</p><p>And the woman had failed to mention that Rey would spend days dying. That it would burn less like the sun and more like night-frozen metal. That her heart would stop and it'd take months before Rey no longer noticed the ear-ringing silence of her breathless body when she scrambled through desert-strewn ruins.</p><p>That she went through it all completely alone in her hollowed out AT-AT was less strange than the fact that she could now wait endlessly for her family. She stopped etching lines into the wall. Never got sick from stagnant water. Her quarterstaff was just for show, a deterrent slung over her shoulder. But when it didn't work and someone bigger thought she was an easy target, she'd toss it aside, letting it thump against the sand, and use her teeth and her short nails.</p><p>After a half-draining that left Unkar Plutt gurgling at her feet, she was paid in credits. His blood had been so thick and unctuous that she'd spat it out onto the ground outside of his stand, not waiting to watch it soak in.</p><p>It was hardly the most remarkable blood she'd tasted.</p><p>No, that would be Kylo Ren's.</p><p>She could remember the tantalizing drips falling to the snow, tainted by a visceral tang but still mouthwatering. Clenching her jaw and scrunching her nose hadn't been enough to resist it and, next to Finn, the danger had been too great. A uselessly aimed blaster, knowing Kylo would pounce: flinging her into a tree, and then darkness.</p><p>It was only later, their sabers locked after luring him in with limp-armed swings and feigned fear, that he had been close enough to smell again. An offer to teach her, her eyes closed in relish that sparked every nerve. She had lunged, started to swallow before she'd even pierced his skin, held him tight as he struggled ferociously. Celestial Skywalker blood and whiskey-strong Corellian. A childhood spent in fresh air and soft beds, an adolescence wasted on self-denial. Adulthood laced with loneliness. She could taste it all as his racing pulse surged it into her eager mouth.</p><p>She'd had so many far-flung flavors. And <em>nothing </em>compared to his, even with the bolt of adrenaline and the flecks of injury. He was savable. Savorable.</p><p>So it was pure greed that made her stop with her tongue against his neck, trailing soothing laps over the pale smoothness as he gasped. Rey let him shove her weakly away, watched as he wobbled, and caught him as he went down. She arranged him on the fight-marred snow, so it looked like he had stumbled and slumped, hand clamped to the bowcaster's damage before he gave out.</p><p>When the <em>Falcon</em> arrived, nobody asked for details. His other injuries were serious enough to account for blood loss and unconsciousness. After he woke up, the way he looked at her made sense- a newly minted Force user capable of besting the grandson of Darth Vader warranted caution. But his pacing remorse and wordless grief overshadowed anything he wanted to say to her, and it was just as well. Leia was forgiving and ever watchful, even in her own mourning.</p><p>Rey, for her part, did everything to hide what she was: locking memories deep in her mind, feeding on strangers in the darkest corners. And now, with more practice, she could convince almost anyone that she hadn't bitten them. That she'd found them, mugged and beaten, and she was a concerned young woman who had just been passing by.</p><p>Not him. It wouldn't work.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>The cantina was a popular spot, crowded and well stocked. Generous pours and large tankards made it a perfect place to overhear loose-tongued conversations about First Order troop movements or secret shipments of weapons. When Rey emerged from a storeroom, wiping off her mouth with the back of her hand as she moved to rejoin the group, Ben Solo caught her by the arm.</p><p>“<em>I'm</em> the monster?”</p><p>Rey glared up at him.</p><p>“Yes.” She twisted out of his grasp. “I'm just hungry.”</p><p>He stared back, eyes boring into hers. No probing like before, just searching for something. He seemed to find it.</p><p>“I'm not going to tell them,” he said, softening. “But I need to know.”</p><p>People nearby were starting to notice. He was too tall, his shoulders too broad, to come across as nonthreatening. Especially when she was backed against a grimy wall, visibly annoyed. Not even a drop of alcohol on his breath, but nobody else knew that.</p><p>“Fine,” she huffed.</p><p>Dragging him to a supply closet, Rey kept her head down. Someone might get the wrong idea if they noticed her repeatedly pulling men into small rooms. Or, if they were well-versed in some of the rarer phenomena in the galaxy, possibly the right idea.</p><p>The cramped space was dense with the smell of spilled disinfectant, and Rey was grateful for how well it masked the tempting memory of his blood. As full as she was, she could always make room for more of him.</p><p>“What's it called?” he asked, voice rumbling. Rey managed not to shiver.</p><p>“I don't know.”</p><p>“It has to have a name.”</p><p>She lifted her chin defiantly. He was so sure of himself, with his glossy black hair and the white shirt that was flapping open at the top like he didn't make her mouth water constantly. A bacta patch had healed what she did to his neck, but she would give anything to reopen his veins.</p><p>“You can call it whatever you'd like,” she said, dismissive and sharp.</p><p>Ben was doing some kind of mental calculation, some assessment, before he gambled.</p><p>“Can I touch you?” he asked finally, a clinical hint to it.</p><p>Her gaze trailed down his body, thinking of other places she could bite. Of other ways she wanted to hear him say that.</p><p>“Oh, we ask first now?”</p><p>It was the ghost of a smile, really. The promise of bigger ones. But it was enough. Rey loved what it did to his angular face.</p><p>“I think it's a good idea,” he said.</p><p>“Go on, then.”</p><p>The approach was more cautious than it needed to be, Rey thought. Shuffling steps up to her. A slowly outstretched hand. She expected the warmth. The gentleness was more of a surprise. He traced her fingers.</p><p>“You're dead, aren't you?” She couldn’t sense fear from him, even in the claustrophobic self-lined closet. It was more like sadness. “I thought I saw...”</p><p>He trailed off. She didn't answer. Only watched the pulse flutter against his neck as his fingertips slid over her arm wrap.</p><p>“Why didn't you kill me?” he asked.</p><p>Rey took a step towards him, closing the remaining distance between them, her body a whisper away from pressing into his.</p><p>“You tasted too good.” Admitting it out loud sounded absurd, like he was a jar of imported honey that had to be tucked far to the back of a shelf so she wouldn't lick it all up at once.</p><p>Up past her arm wrap, his touch found her bare skin again.</p><p>“What do I taste like?”</p><p>Life. Heaving, desperate, spawning life. It was a secret. She hadn't minded being what she was when all she had to do was wait. But maybe, in him, there was something different. And after she'd drank from him, she had almost fallen asleep for the first time since she was turned, on the brink of real dreams.</p><p>“I can't tell you.”</p><p>He swept a loose wisp of hair back from her forehead, leaning down so his words tickled in her ear.</p><p>“Can you show me?”</p><p>It was easy to catch his lips between hers and sigh into his answering groan. It was harder to keep her teeth from digging into the cushioned softness. And when his arm hooked around her waist to pull her against him, it was impossible to be satisfied with their gliding tongues and her grasping hands. Rey wanted to warn him that sometimes her hunger could change, that she craved messy things that she wasn't sure he'd want. But he was grinding into her, and when she ripped her mouth away from his, he was gasping and maybe he wanted messy things, too.</p><p>“Do you want more?” he asked her, reaching for something on his belt.</p><p>With a practiced flick, he flipped open the shining, razor-sharp blade. No more incriminating tooth marks, no bruising edges. She could drink cleanly. It would look like he'd gotten clipped in training, or scraped by a raw metal edge while working on a malfunctioning hyperdrive.</p><p>She nodded, not trusting herself to speak, lips still tingling. When she took the knife from him, it was heated by his hand. Just a sip is all she needed. A reminder of why he was worth all the trouble, and all the guarded but delicate things she felt when she was close to him.</p><p>A swift, shallow nick on the back of his wrist. A believable wound, more of a scratch than a slice. Ben laughed a little, and the sound of it could lure her out to sea in the middle of the night. Droplets of blood beaded up, irregular along the cut, and Rey thought again of honey, syrupy and precious.</p><p>She didn't suck. Not the second time. She kissed with patient lips and a grateful tongue. Having it freely given was a new experience, and Ben's jagged breathing made her want to hear him come. He was hard and thick against her thigh, and he cradled the back of her head as she licked him up. His blood exploded across her tongue, almost fizzy in its lightness. His wrongdoings met her where she was and she was many things, but she was no longer alone.</p><p>Rubbing him over her wet mouth, she let his blood clot and slow under her lips. She could feel him in her, a glow that clung to her throat and gathered in her dead belly. Soon to crawl sluggishly through her arteries, jostled by gravity and her movements, until it found her still heart and was swallowed up by it. Maybe she would tell him, one day. That he made her remember what it felt like to gasp for air. That he felt like breath itself. But it wasn't time. Not when he was picking her up and letting her lock her legs around him, pushing her back against a cabinet and rattling nearby shelves with his impatient thrusts, starving for friction even through clothes. And not when she was curling her fingers in his silky hair, a liquid heat building fast between her thighs, and kissing him like his mouth could feed her forever.</p><p>The supply closet door whirred open. A gruff, burly man blocked the hazy light and the sudden din as they reluctantly broke apart.</p><p>“Alright, everybody out.” He jabbed his thumb over his shoulder. “I've had enough of you.”</p><p>The man reached in and grabbed Ben by the front of his shirt, hauling him and shoving him out into the crowded cantina.</p><p>“And don't let me catch you in here again,” he said, pointing to Rey as she stalked past him, glaring. An errant droplet of blood clung to the corner of her lips and she licked it off.</p><p>Rey took an abandoned, partially full glass from a table as she passed. It would taste like dust and ash if she drank it, but holding a drink staved off most suspicion about where she'd been. She slid into their booth, the coarse canvas of the seat tugging at her clothes.</p><p>“See that guy?” Finn asked, his pride obvious as he cast a sidelong glance at a man standing at the packed bar. “New recruit.”</p><p>“That's great,” Rey said earnestly, even as she hoped she'd cleaned off all the blood. She watched Ben reach over shoulders and heads to take a tankard from the bartender, then weave through the crowd holding it aloft and unbumped.</p><p>And she knew, as she gave him a small, hidden smile, that things would be very different from then on.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
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